We are developing a web application in TYPO3 Flow for one of our customers. Usally it should run on a web server over the internet, but there should also be an offline version for windows.
Our customer would sell this application with the two versions, on the web server it's combiled/crypted with Zend so his customer isn't able to change the code or anything like this.
Our idea for the offline windows application is, that we create an executable linux virtualisation with an installed apache and maybe with an pre-installed browser. So the user only starts the executable and the package will start with the browser pointing on the webapp.
Is there any solution, I think something like VMWare ThinApp (but I think this it's only for windows applications)?
Or you can build a bootable USB stick based on a linux distribution, with a custom version of some distribution like webconverger, but the user must reboot to use it.
Or you can customize a Virtual Box image, based on Turnkey Lamp Stack per exemple, but the user must have a copy of Virtual Box (that's free).
How do you wont to deal with data persistence ?
I'm jumping into updating a Classic ASP web app coming from a PHP background and am trying to get my bearings. I'm used to just installing something like MAMP, messing the httpd.conf a bit and getting on my way.
Ideally, I would like to be able to edit this app completely locally on my Macbook Pro running OS X Leopard so that I'm not messing with my client's server too much. Now, if I need to I'm willing to install Windows 7 via Boot Camp or running it as a virtual machine. Of course my preference is to stay completely in OS X, but I have my doubts about that possibility. So, how should I go about this?
One thing to note is that once I'm done updating this ASP web app I will have to make changes to a VB(.NET) application as well, so I'd like to have to change my virtual workspace as little as possible when that time comes around.
As you say, you will need to install Windows via Boot Camp or VM (your choice).
Once in Windows, you can install Visual Studio 2010 (Express free), where you can edit your ASP Classic files, and you will have it already installed when you need to do VB.net
Do not forget to install IIS when you install Windows (you will need it to run ASP Classic)
dHi, I'm trying to setup my IIS server (6.0) to serve files from a linux share.
As I'm pretty unfamiliar with linux I ask the community for any input on this.
I've had problems even having IIS server serve content from another windows machine share, this could be a prolem with our domain. The iis server is not on the domain.
As I want to move more towards open source and linux I think having a simple file server is a good way to start.
I took the linux distro chooser at http://www.zegeniestudios.net and it recommends OpenSuse/Mandriva/Ubuntu.
Any oppinions on that would be welcome aswell.
You could use Samba to crate a Windows share on Linux.
Many of my users have been telling me that they'd like to run my software on their Linux machines under Wine.
But I'm a Windows Developer who has practically no experience with Linux.
Now I could spend a month or two installing Linux, learning Linux, installing Wine, learning Wine, and thoroughly ensure my application runs well under Wine. But I am still developing for Windows, so I don't want to take so much time away from development right now.
So what can I do without too much effort to get my program running as well as possible under Wine?
I did find this General help on running applications under Wine.
Download VMWare and an Ubuntu virtual machine (Ubuntu is a popular Linux distribution) from the VMWare site. This will provide you with a working Linux O/S inside your Windows environment without needing to install Linux manually.
You can then use the instructions here to install Wine, that Wiki page also provides you with some instructions on how to use it.
If you follow what Adam Rosenfield suggested and just try running your application in Wine unmodified, you will be able to determine quickly whether there are problems. My guess would be that there are some, otherwise your users would not have contacted you about it :)
There are many ways for getting help with debugging applications in Wine, consult the website for options and pick a few ways that suit you. As always, it's best not to rely on a single channel for communication.
Also, if you are more comfortable with developing in Windows, the approach of using a virtual machine will allow you to compile your code as usual in Windows and copy the binary into the virtual machine for testing (Ubuntu supports browsing/mounting Windows shares).
As long as you're not doing anything unusual such as playing around with hardware or poking around in undocumented API calls and data structures, you should be able to run your code under Wine with few or no modifications. Wine has a fairly complete implementation of the public Windows APIs, so if your program plays nice and doesn't mess around, it should just work.
Don't use too much of the windows API! Don't use anything new from Microsoft ;)
Avoid using WPF is the #1 suggestion.
But it really wouldn't kill you to test your app under Wine. It's not that hard to try; it certainly won't take months. For instance:
Use http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/downloadmirrors#wubi to install
Ubuntu into a file on your Windows machine, then start ubuntu and install the latest Wine from
http://winehq.org/download/deb
Then try running your app's installer.
If it doesn't work, check the Wine FAQ, ask for help in one of the wine forums, and/or file bugs in wine's bug tracker.
Should take about three hours from a dead start to trying out your installer.
I was rather surprised when one of my Delphi5 applications just worked out of the zip.
The only real way this is going to work is to do it yourself, i.e. install vmware and a linux distro as Sean suggested. Linux isn't actually that hard, and we're all here to help.
Having done a quick test I can confirm that it largely works. There is an ACCVIO reading 0x34 during start up, the error dialog can be ignored and the application runs, I opened the Steve McCarthy GEDCOM.
Screenshot
This was using Wine 1.1.12 under MEPIS 7.9.94-rc1_32 under VMWare. Highly recommend to use VMWare for this sort of thing.
What language/platform do you develop with? Depending on which it is, it should be no trouble to get it running native. For example, if you use Java or Python, both operate very cleanly on Linux. Likewise, if you're a .NET developer, you should be able, with some pain, to get your app running in Mono.
Find Linux beta testers. It can reports a bug to WINE developers or find a bug in your application.
Wine is more sensitive to errors than Windows. For example, Wine will crash on NULL window handles, and fail to create windows if the class is invalid, whereas Windows is more robust and will just circumvent the error.
It's an opportunity to clean up your code.
I was amazed at how well Wine ran my app the first time I tried. However, I had to get rid of a third-party driver-based component.
I am debugging VisualStudio 2005 webservice client software, accessing a Linux webserver.
VisualStudio has MSVSMON.exe for remote debugging of webserver code.
Is there an equivalent debug-monitor for Linux?
Yes, but it's not quite ready yet. You can sign up for the preview though (you didn't specify which language, but if it is C# or VB.Net this should work).